Optical Solitary Waves in the Higher Order Nonlinear Schrodinger Equation

We study solitary wave solutions of the higher order nonlinear Schrodinger equation for the propagation of short light pulses in an optical fiber. Using a scaling transformation we reduce the equation to a two-parameter canonical form. Solitary wave (1-soliton) solutions exist provided easily met inequality constraints on the parameters in the equation are satisfied. Conditions for the existence of N-soliton solutions (N>1) are determined; when these conditions are met the equation becomes the modified KdV equation. A proper subset of these conditions meet the Painleve plausibility conditions for integrability.